Dr. PB Berge 💖
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persephone.blue
Dr. PB Berge 💖
@persephone.blue
1.6K followers 640 following 52 posts
🔥 ludoarsonist
🕹️ media scholar
🎮 game breaker

Assistant Professor of Experimental Game Design @UAlberta. Dir. @ https://darcmode.org

🔍 trans play 🏳️‍⚧️ TRPGs 🎲 extremism 💀 & the ✨unplayable✨

🌐 https://persephone.blue
🎲 https://gravesnail.itch.io
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persephone.blue
So hyped to be talking about liches, trans play, lyric games, and parasitic eels with the fantabulous @percivalhornak.bsky.social in ~10 minutes at Generation Analog! @analoggamestudies.bsky.social 🌔🎲💀✨
A title slide showing an eel with the words "Liches, Lampreys, and the Moon: An incantation for trans life & lyrical play" as the title.
July 17, 2025 at 6:53 PM
persephone.blue
‼️I have a new article out this week! 🎉

From anti-game jams to fantasy console communities, I explored how ✨ speculative game design ✨ practices are a vital response to growing precarity in tech industries.

Also, it's open access! Also, it won best paper at #FDG25! 🏆
The abstract for the article, titled "Anti-Games, Fantasy Consoles, and the Rise of Speculative Game Development on itch.io." Thumbnail for the presentation of the paper, featuring a pink sun, retrowave background, and the title of the article.
May 14, 2025 at 4:14 PM
persephone.blue
An update! 🌌💜✨🔥
Got my tattoo of Chaos, from the Hades games, colored in! Tattoo is on the upper bicep--pink and purple and gold and white and teal and blue.
May 3, 2025 at 4:29 AM
persephone.blue
Started some new ink!!! Featuring my beloved Mxtress 💜✨Chaos✨💜, whose boons I'm taking into this high-heat run of 2025.

(💉 Pokery & portrait of the primordial progenitor by the unrivaled Julia McKay!)
PB in a witchy tattoo parlor, looking at my arm in a mirror and beaming! Tattoo closeup! Right bicep and shoulder. Chaos--the character from Hades and Hades II. They have a halo and are wearing a suit that warps into shifting faces. A deep purple spacey background. Mostly linework, with color to come.
January 1, 2025 at 3:06 PM
persephone.blue
Welcome new followers! 👋

To occupy you while you're here, have some glamor shots of a bioactive, Legend of Zelda themed vivarium I built for my geckos out of an IKEA cabinet over the summer!! 🦎✨🪴
An orange Bokoblin standing in a Shiekah Tower! A blue Bokoblin, dancing on a little fort by a snake plant! A lil Korok hiding in a mossy cave. An IKEA cabinet filled with tropical wilderness!
November 11, 2024 at 4:01 AM
persephone.blue
Truly the #TransStudies2024 dream team: immensely grateful to my rockstar friends @hibby.bsky.social, @wells.bsky.social, @wendiyu.bsky.social, and @madzbrutal.bsky.social for bringing this fiery panel on "B{Ending} Trans Media Studies" to (un)life. 🔥❤️‍🔥💖
Banner for the panel "B{Ending} Trans Media Studies" featuring skulls, fire, and icons of the panelists. Hibby and Wells standing in front of a screen with PB, Madison, and Wendi. Everyone is making silly faces.
September 6, 2024 at 8:28 PM
persephone.blue
April 5, 2024 at 4:51 PM
persephone.blue
So... I have some news.

🎉🎉🎉
An updated CV with the exciting addition: "Incoming Assistant Professor of Experimental Game Design in the Media & Technology Studies Program at the University of Alberta."
March 22, 2024 at 3:44 PM
persephone.blue
GAMES FOR GAZA bundle is up now-- 100% of proceeds go to Palestinian medical aid.

$10 for over 250 games from incredible designers (and also me). Support if you can. 💜

itch.io/b/2120/games...
Photo of the gallery for the Games for Gaza bundle. Link in post.
October 27, 2023 at 5:58 PM
persephone.blue
New article out today in 🎲 Games & Culture 🎲!

Originally presented at #GenerationAnalog 2022, I discuss reactionary Dungeons & Dragons fans, fantasy realism, transphobia, and diabolical ~elf blood lore~! 🐲⚔🩸
The front page of the article, titled "The Table and the Tomb: Positioning Trans Power and Play Amid Fantasy Realism in Dungeons & Dragons." The hashtag #KeepGamingFantasy displayed over an illustration of the elf-god Corellon Larethian cutting out the eye of the orc-god Gruumsh.
October 13, 2023 at 5:07 PM
persephone.blue
📚 I have 10+ published/forthcoming journal and proceedings articles, including in Games & Culture, Feminist Media Studies, Game Studies, New Media & Society, and more.

🔥 My dissertation examines the so-called unplayable and asks how trans play can abrogate and reshape media systems.
A purple banner showing the front pages of several of my articles, along with the cover for my dissertation, "Unplayable Games."
October 12, 2023 at 9:41 PM